I’m not the only who’s got holiday plans at the moment – it’s a regular conversation with my clients.  But what is interesting is how often there’s holiday guilt when it comes to taking a break.  And how frequently I see this pattern:

  • trying to put taking a break off as long as poss
  • getting exhausted and approaching burnout
  • collapsing into the hol and either getting ill or feeling so wired it takes days to wind down
  • packing the diary before and after the time off
  • getting home and hitting the chaos of a busy diary along with post-holiday chores – so all the benefits of the break go out of the window

And so I’ve been calling myself the Holiday Coach lately – as we’ve thrashed out plans to make this process easier.  This has been particularly useful for my entrepreneurial business coaching clients, but some tips can work for employed people too.

Ditch the guilt

The most important thing is to ditch the guilt that makes you feel that you can’t take time off, or that makes you feel sheepish when you tell others you won’t be at work.

  • Take time to notice and gently challenge those emotions (journalling can help here)
  • Remember the oxygen mask analogy – you don’t help anyone if you’re frazzled or burnt out
  • Remind yourself that nobody is indispensable. It’s better for you, your colleagues, your loved one to take planned holiday rather than collapsing into sickness or being inefficient with stress and exhaustion
  • For the self-employed – your job is there to provide you with the same benefits as your employed equivalents and that means regular “paid” holiday (your pricing has to cover this)

Pre-empt the collapse

This is one of my favourite bits of advice and one I had to learn the hard way in my hectic acupuncturist days.  I would wait until I really needed a holiday, it would then take weeks to create the space in my diary and, by that time, I’d be on my knees.  So I started booking a week off at least every 12 weeks, even if I wasn’t going away. This is what I suggest to clients – and they love it:

  • Block the space in your diary even if you don’t have concrete plans. You can shift it if you need to but at least the gap is locked in
  • Practice and play with the frequencies to find what works for you (and remember it might be different at different times of year)
  • Tune into how you’re feeling – the idea is to reach the holiday when you’re looking forward to a break, but not desperate for it

Ease in and out

So a week in the sun sounds great. But your diary’s full right up to the last minute, and you’re back into busy the day you get home.  You don’t want to waste your holiday/unpaid days without actually being away, right?

But what if that means that you hit your holiday so stressed that you really don’t get the benefits from it.  And the few benefits you do get, go out the window immediately because you are run ragged as soon as you return.  Not only are you working flat out and have the usual life admin, you’re trying to shop, pack/unpack, do endless laundry, get back to speed with work/emails (oh and throw kids into that and it’s even more).

So how about being realistic about what you have to do before and after a holiday and make some time (remembering to share the load and challenge any perfectionism streaks too)? I truly believe that this easing in and out of the hol is almost as important as the holiday itself – it means the benefits last so much longer.